


Tastes Like Gold

by Nahara



Category: I Am Number Four (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-15
Updated: 2011-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:05:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nahara/pseuds/Nahara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't like walking into the flames, this is like swallowing a supernova. And it tastes like gold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tastes Like Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hesse over on LiveJournal. This is entirely hers: what comes of being the highest bidder on my thread at help_japan. Also, this is based more on book canon than film.

 

John has known nothing but travel in his short life. Nothing but pins in a map. A life of inked lines from one small town to another, crisscrossing America, briefly edging over the Canadian border only to shoot back down, sharp and angry towards Beulah, North Dakota. There is a line from Syracuse, New York, to Sylvester, Georgia; one from Olive Branch, Mississippi, to Panguitch, Utah –- a connect-the-dots of John’s time on Earth. The final shape of his life is still unclear, many more dots left to join.

John is destined to be a modern nomad, it seems, to wake up one place and bed down in another. He has to remind himself that Sam was not brought up like this. Sam was born and raised in Paradise and probably thought he was going to live and die in Paradise, too. There is a comfort in that, a steadiness that John aches for.

He regrets.

“Don’t,” Sam says, voice low and awkward. “Not on my account.” They don’t usually talk about this, about leaving Paradise, Sarah, Sam’s home.

“Can’t help it.” John sighs. It’s his turn to drive and Sam’s supposed to be catching some Zs, but he’s anxious and wound-up about hell only knows what and keeps shifting and rearranging his too-pointy elbows and too-knobbly knees. It makes John feel on edge.

Six is sitting in the flatbed of Sam’s truck, face angled into the wind, eyes closed and a hand resting companionably, protectively, on the top of Bernie Kosar’s head. John can see them in the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t know what to say that I haven’t already,” Sam continues and John turns to look at him briefly, at his profile outlined by the orange summer sunset. “I made my choice. It was mine to make. You aren’t responsible for everyone in the whole goddamn world.”

Lack of sleep makes Sam grumpy and candid, John’s noticed. Like he’s too exhausted to pretend at anything. John wants to believe that he isn’t responsible for _the whole goddamn world_ , but reels of memory replaying Lorien’s destruction are superimposed over the clear-cut memory of what happened back in Paradise Ohio . . . it only makes John realise that Humans stand no chance against the firepower and sheer brutality of the Mogodorians. It _is_ up to him.

Well, him and the five other Lorien. Four left to find.

Sometimes the size of the task is too daunting to think about, like trying to figure the concept of infinity. There is only so much you can think on some subjects before your mind retreats to safer ground, to manageable numbers.

“Jesus,” Sam bitches under his breath. “You’re doing it again. Your martyr face.”

“My… my _what_?”

“Your martyr face. The whole-universe-sitting-on-your-shoulders face.” Sam flings the sweatshirt he’d been using as a pillow into the footwell and turns to face John completely. His eyes are red-rimmed and a little puffy, like maybe he’d been crying recently. John dismisses this notion as plain stupid. Sam’s tougher than he looks, even if he can’t run for shit.

“I know you’ve got a lot resting on you, some big-ass destiny that you and Six and the others have to fulfil. I can’t imagine that kind of pressure. Blows my mind.” The intensity goes out of Sam in the span of a blink, and suddenly he’s looking away, awkward again. His hand clenches on the bench seat between them. “I chose to come with you. I was happy to do it. So for Pete’s sake, John, stop factoring me into your worries, okay?”

John agrees to nothing and Sam doesn’t look at him again as he turns towards his window. Eventually he falls asleep against the seat-belt strap, body twisted into a curve, like a question mark.

  
They don’t bring the conversation up again, not when they reach Eagle Pass in Maverick County Texas, not as they nervously-cautiously-brazenly cross the border and into Mexico; not as they head for the equator, high-tailing it like fugitives; not on any of the nights they lay side-by-side on lumpy mattresses in a cheep motel room, or in the flatbed of the pickup truck, the stars hanging over their heads like Christmas tree lights, seemingly brighter in Mexico than America. It doesn’t matter where they are. The words linger between them like shadows.

Because John can’t -- fucking _won’t_ \-- promise not to care. Sam was his first friend, the first person on Earth he ever told about who he really was and that counts for a lot. Henri is dead and Sarah is far away, untouchable. Even Six is aloof and out of bounds, living more in her head than in this world. But as glad as John is to have him along on this journey, this battle, he worries of losing someone else. He doesn’t understand how Sam can ask him to do the impossible and just . . . _let go_.

“Lover’s tiff?” Six asks as they sit with their legs dangling off the flatbed. Sam had demanded they stop because he needed a piss and no, it couldn’t wait for the next gas station. Her tone is lazy, bored, but John can see the sharpness in her eyes like broken glass. He laughs because that’s the only answer to a question like that.

“Sure. Lovers. We’re going at it like rabbits in all that alone time we don’t get.”

“If you wanted to be alone -” Six begins, but John throws her a look that shuts her up.

“He’s just tired of me worrying over him, and I told him I won’t stop. I brought him along for this fucked-up ride and I’ll damn well feel as I please about doing it.”

Six frowns and they’re silent for a moment. She scratches at her knee absently, looking out across the red desert stretched ahead of them.

“He wishes you were,” she says at last.

“He wishes what?”

“Pretty stupid for a Lorien,” Six observes. “Sam has a gigantic crush on you.”

John feels a blush crawl up his face that has nothing to do with the burning sun, and looks anxiously over his shoulder in the direction where Sam had stalked into the brush, Bernie Kosar at his heels. “No, he doesn’t. Does he? And how would _you_ know? Can you mind-read now? That a new legacy?”

“Doesn’t take mind-reading. Takes common sense and _eyes_ to see how much he likes you. I think he cares so much he might burst open.”

“He had a girlfriend…”

“Necking at a party doesn’t count, John. Besides, he left her, his home and his mom for you, didn’t he?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like.”

John considers for a moment. Thinks of the way Sam looks at him sometimes, like he wants to say something but is too shy, like he’s nervous and happy and lost.

“I have Sarah,” John says. Six snorts and jumps down from the truck. A little cloud of red dust billows around her ankles. She strolls down the road, hands in her pockets, feet kicking up a storm in her wake.

  
Another week of pounding heat, of open windows, of Spanish guitars on the radio, another week of sun like a fist in the face. Another week and they’ve reached the small town of San Pedro where they get their first lead, a drop of water in a vast desert ocean. The whisper of a Lorien. It’s like a miracle and John is buoyed up by the sound of Sam laughing, grin stretching around the sunburn-sting on his face.

They stay in San Pedro for a full day and night looking at maps and stalking up on provisions. Batteries, gas, shampoo, sunblock. Sliced white sandwich bread, peanut butter, bottles of water, microwavable noodles in plastic cups, bananas, mango and,

“Fritos Corn Chips. We need more.” Six says, tossing a jumbo party-sized bag into their cart.

“We don’t _need_ any,” Sam says under his breath. He pretends to be checking out the cans of refried beans when Six glares in his direction. They buy the corn chips.

On the side of the road headed out of San Pedro they eat dry peanut butter sandwiches and stand around the hood of the truck, unfolding the map yet again to remind themselves of their plan. They smile peanut butter smiles, victory smiles.

  
The plan doesn’t work. The Lorien is gone, her trace is vanished so softly it’s like a feather on a breeze. Six curses in Spanish, then disappears into the desert.

“Should we go find her?” Sam asks anxiously after hour number two, eyes squinting at the horizon.

“No. Let her be. She’ll be back when she’s ready.”

Sam nods. He reaches round the back of his seat and pulls out the bag of Wonder Bread and the Jif.

“Hungry,” he says by way of explanation. “Want some?”

John says no. The taste of peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth will always remind him of failure.

  


It’s probably stress that causes it, that’s the only explanation Six can think up in hindsight. John’s not so sure but can’t come up with any better reason.

It starts out as angry, savage headaches, tension building behind John’s eyes like something’s desperate to push its way out of him. The pain reaches such a peak that he can’t keep his eyes open, and quickly deteriorates further into needing complete darkness. Sunglasses don’t work so he’s resigned to tying one of Six’s scarves around his head and curling in the passenger seat of the truck. He can do nothing but listen to the hum of the engine as they continue south.

“Trying to get out of driving duty?” Sam says, his voice too soft for the joke to strike right. John appreciates it anyway.

“Something like.”

The darkness banishes the banshee-screaming agony of his head for a short time, so John allows himself to relax fractionally. He leans into the sway of the truck. Every pothole -- rut, stone, crack -- is like braille, telling the story of their journey. John begins to read, feeling their journey in his bones. But eventually the pain comes back, continues, viscous and unrelenting. None of them know what to do. They can’t ask for help, they’re hunted by Human law and the Mogodorians.

Sam makes an executive decision near midday on day three and swerves off the deserted highway into the next rest stop exit. John doesn’t know where they are (Sam’s Spanish is a sin against Hispanics everywhere) but nor does he care. He just wants the pain to stop right the fuck now.

He brings up his hands to his head, holding and pressing down on either side. He needs to keep his head still, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

“I know, man. I’m hurrying,” Sam says, distressed. John hadn’t realised he was talking out loud. He can see bright spots behind the darkness of his eyelids, like twinkling stars. The world is falling away, he’s tripping down into the sky, vertigo, plummeting.

  
John wakes suddenly, heart pumping like he’s been running. Like his body decided to try being human for a day -- an extremely out-of-shape human who has run a marathon. Sweat is cooling on his forehead and down his neck, giving him feverish chills. His breathing is heavy and he doesn’t know where he is. When a firm hand pushes against his chest John doesn’t think, he lashes out, grabs at a slim wrist with all his might.

“Ow! Jesus, John. It’s me, it’s me. Calm down, you’re hurting me.” It’s Sam’s voice. He lets go abruptly and once again, though a little more timidly, he’s persuaded by a gentle hand to lie down. He nestles into a thin pillow that smells like stale violets, dust.

“Wha’s goin on?” His voice slurs. “Where...?”

“Stop worrying, you’re okay. Everything’s fine. We’re in a town called Loreto. In some cheep-ass motel that I’m pretty sure charges hourly rates, but it’s remote and nobody’s asking any questions.”

“Good,” John says. His head is still throbbing but the pain has dulled a little. “Sorry I hurt you.”

“‘sokay.” There’s an embarrassed tone to Sam’s voice, fainter than before like he’s turned his face away from John. “You didn’t do it on purpose, you’re just freakin’ strong.”

“Still sorry. Where’s Six?”

“Dunno. Said she was going out to run some errands but that was hours ago. She’s probably hustling pool again.”

“Again?”

Sam laughs, sarcastic and sharp. “I think she’s feeling emasculated or whatever, not being able to do anything to help. Been trying to figure out what’s wrong, how to fix you, but nothing’s come of it. She’s making up for it by giving the locals a good thrashing.” He pauses. “How’re you feeling? I... we were really worried there, man.”

“Still painful, but not so bad as before.”

“Good. That’s... better.”

Sam shifts beside him on the bed, the mattress springs squeaking at every movement. John can feel him hovering above him and really wishes he could see Sam, watch his narrow face and spindly fingers do whatever they’re doing right now. It’s a moment before John realises that Sam is removing the scarf from around his eyes. His body seizes up, anticipating painful, needling light. He doesn’t realise that he’s once again grabbed at Sam’s wrist, halting the proceedings, until Sam hisses in discomfort.

“It’s pitch black in here,” Sam says, low. “Curtains drawn, and the sun went down an hour ago. Switched off all the lights. You’re safe.”

John slowly prise his fingers from Sam’s wrist, ashamed at his trembling hands. He keeps his eyes closed as the scarf is removed.

“You can open them,” Sam whispers, fingers briefly brushing the skin under John’s eyes. The touch is gone in a moment and it makes John shiver. Slowly, cautiously, John blinks his eyes open. He groans.

“Still hurt?”

“Not... exactly. It’s weird.” He tries again and the room is dark but not really. John can see everything. The texture of the bare plastered walls, the damp stain on the ceiling, Sam worrying his lower lip. “I can _see_.”

“How? I can barely find the end of my nose,” Sam says, leaning closer, breath tickling against John’s skin. His heart picks up speed, glad Sam can’t see his face.

It’s a strange feeling to be able to see in the dark because your brain never stops being aware, it knows that that it’s surrounded by darkness. But everything is edged by a strange golden light.

“Dunno, I guess it’s a new legacy. Seems redundant, what with having flashlights for hands.“ He scrubs at his tender eyes. They feel bruised and it’s still less painful to keep them closed.

“Not gonna die then?” Sam laughs, nervous and clearly relieved. The sounds hits John in the heart. Beside Henri, he’d never really had anyone worry about him, nobody would miss him if something happened. So much has changed

“No,” John whispers, “wouldn’t leave you.”

He can hear the gentle exhale from Sam. The springs in the bed squeak again and suddenly Sam is beside him. Not touching, but close. John decides, as he lies there drifting back to sleep, that despite everything he’s never felt safer.

  
“Get out!” John screams, eyes screwed shut. “Sam, right now. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The lightning is ripping through him, flaying him open. He’s going to die, this is what dying feels like. His body is no longer enough of a barrier to contain the power and raging tidal wave of energy he possesses. He can feel the legacy like it’s a tangible thing, roaring through him. John’s body is fragile, he can’t hold it in much longer.

“I can help! I can -”

“Not this time, Sam,” Six says. “Get. Out.”

When John hears the door of the motel room close he no longer holds back.

He screams when the power rips from him. Six braces herself in the blast zone, arms tight around him. The smell of electricity is strong, something is being singed, possibly himself. The pain is enough.

  
“I feel so useless,” Sam says later, when John wakes from another blackout. There’s a damp washcloth across his forehead but he still feels like his body has been burnt. Everything hurts. “I couldn’t keep my dad safe, and I can’t keep you safe. What’s the point?”

“You do help, Sam. You’re here.”

“Not going to go Cyclops on me, are you?” Sam asks, voice amused though John can hear the worry just below the surface.

“Who?”

“Cyclops? The X-Men? Shoots force-beams out of his eyes?” Sam sounds incredulous the more John shakes his head. “Well, never mind. Do you know what power you might get next? If it hurts this much getting it, I wonder how powerful it will be once its settled?”

“I don’t know. Henri would know but...” John doesn’t have to finish. Sam makes a sympathetic sound and then the matres moves beneath them, tired springs whining under Sam’s minuscule weight.

“Think we’ll find out soon?” Sam asks. He sounds so tired. Probably has his eyes closed already.

“I fucking hope so.”

“Me too.”

  
The first thing John notices when he wakes up is that he’s got a bad case of morning wood. He doesn’t need to see it tenting the thin motel sheets, he can feel it. In normal circumstances he’d deal with it, quick and rough, just like he enjoys, but he’s sharing a bed with his best friend and people don’t jack-off with their best friend lying on the pillow next to them.

John tries to think of things that will make it go down, stamp out the fire that’s starting to burn, insistent, in the pit of his stomach. It doesn’t work.

As carefully as he can, so as not to wake up Sam, John turns himself on his side, making sure his back is to his friend and curls in on himself like a comma. John wishes he could just slip into the bathroom and jerk off in the shower like a normal person, but he can’t get to the bathroom without Sam. John isn’t entirely sure where he is. He’s totally disorientated without his eyes, but it’s more complicated than that, it feels like he’s lost more than his sight. He’s missing something vital and undefinable. It aches in a way that’s different and more terrifying than his eyes.

John takes a deep steadying breath -- not even feeling sorry for himself is enough to calm his dick down -- as he slides a hand under the waistband of his pajama bottoms. He grabs a firm hold of his dick, which jumps under his fingers. John has to bite into his pillow to stop the involuntary groan of pleasure. It feels a lot ridiculous that his body is so wired, that he’s ready to shoot his load with a single tug, like a twelve-year-old or something. John can’t deny, though, that it feels really satisfying, amazingly good for all that it’s only his own hand doing all the work. Something is better than nothing he guesses.

He plays with his foreskin a little, pushing it up and down his swollen shaft, skin silky and burning-hot, before allowing a finger to slip in around the loose skin and stroke the head of his dick. The breath catches in his throat, hips jerking a little. He hears rusty springs wheeze beneath him. John freezes and listens for any sign of Sam waking, of discovering him whacking off on the other side of the sheets.

There’s nothing. John lets out another slow, deep breath and moves his hand again. He cups and squeezes his balls, the back of his index finger running along the vein under his dick. He only does it a few times and he already feels like he’s swinging high on the ride towards orgasm. He snorts softly at the hollow, swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach.

John thought he was being quiet enough but perhaps not. He nearly cries when he feels Sam roll over, nose burying into his nape. Sam’s breathing is so hot against John’s heated skin that the sensation is almost more than he can bear. He feels a little like he’s stepping into a fire.

Sam murmurs something unintelligible, just whispers of skin on skin. John shivers in the heat. He thinks Sam is asleep, but his brain is a little too preoccupied with his own dick to think properly about what to do next, how to stop this from being more awkward. But then Sam’s arm curves around John’s hip and steady fingers meet his around his dripping cock. He can’t help the moan, the traitorous canting of his hips into the welcome touch.

“Sam,” he whispers, hoarse.

“Yeah?” Those lips brush against John’s neck again, like a benediction, a promise.

“You... you --” he stutters as Sam calmly moves John’s hand and replaces it with his own. “You don’t have to... please, Sam. I’m not. I wouldn’t ask. You don’t...”

“No, I don’t.” There’s an electric pause and John feels like every one of his muscles is on a knife edge, tense before the plunge, waiting, waiting. He feels Sam smile into his hair, gentle and undeservedly sweet. “But I want to.”

It doesn’t make sense to John, not really. But most of his life hasn’t made much sense up to now. He’s learned to live in the moment, to enjoy what life throws at him, good and bad alike. Sam touching him, holding him carefully, tightly, like John is precious and loved, like he’s family, is one of the better things. Freely given and freely taken.

Sam’s isn’t exactly an expert at jacking on a dude’s cock, probably only knows what feels good for him, but John doesn’t mind. It feels pretty damn good for all that it’s too slow, that Sam doesn’t seem to know what to do with his foreskin. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all. The friction, the breath on this neck, the chest against his spine, the heart against his shoulder, beat, beat, beating out the rhythm of them together. Fast and faster. Lightning. John is bursting into light, from the inside out.

This isn’t like walking into the flames, this is like swallowing a supernova. And it tastes like gold.

“Wow. Do you always black out like that? Will you always shine like the sun when I give you a handjob?” Sam’s voice breaks into the nothingness that John is floating in. His words echo strangely, like they’re reaching John from a distance. Even so far away, John can hear the humour and it warms him.

“I don’t think so, Sam.”

“Damn, I was hoping I was just that fucking amazing.” A nose nuzzles at John’s jaw, a brush of hot, dry lips skitter there before disappearing, shy. Even after what they’ve just done, Sam still remains awkward as hell. John wouldn’t have it any other way.

“What happened?” he asks, moving his head toward where he knows Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed.

“You don’t remember the bit where my hand was on your dick?”

John laughs and nudges Sam with a knee. “Shut up, loser. You know what I mean. After that.”

“Oh well, you kind of did a dying angel thing.”

“I... what?”

“You know, like in _Supernatural_ , when they gank an angel and there’s nothing but blinding light everywhere. Burns mortal eyes.”

“Um. _Supernatural_? I still don’t understand.”

“Jesus, John. You look human and all but you’re kind of a freak. _Supernatural_ is a TV show. It's awesome and there's angles and demons and the Apocalypse. When they kill off angels in the show they kind of look like you did. You sort of... burst into light. It was kind of amazing.”

“Are you hurt?” John would never forgive himself if he went and burned Sam with his _orgasm_.

“I think your face has been scorched into my retinas,” Sam says, dry but affectionate. “But otherwise no.”

“Oh, OK. Good.”

“Know what it was all about? Something to do with your eyes, maybe?”

“I think so, it felt different than a normal, um, orgasm. It felt like something was unfurling, releasing. But... I don’t know. I mean, my head still hurts. I don’t think whatever this is has finished. Feels like it won’t finish for a long while yet.”

John’s hand is captured by Sam’s spindly fingers, they hold on tight, comforting. And John thinks maybe he’s OK with waiting.

  
They move from Loreto later that morning, Six taking Bernie Kosar and settling themselves into the flatbed. Bernie Kosar seems happy, John can feel his contented hum from where he stands next to Sam at front of the truck. Sam leads him to the passenger’s side door. John still has the damned scarf around his eyes, even though he thinks it’s overkill now. His head feels bruised but like it’s healing.

“Hey, John?” Sam says, quiet and embarrassed.

“Yeah?”

“I bought you something, thought you’d like it better than...” He trails off, fingers tugging playfully at the fringe of Six’s scarf. He places something into John’s hands. With careful fingers John investigates -- it only takes a moment before he realises that it’s a pair of large, dorky sunglasses. John laughs, more than he’s laughed in a long time. He pulls Sam in for a tight hug, squeezing the air out of him.

“Thanks,” he whispers into Sam’s ear, then kisses the delicate cartilage. He can feel Sam blushing under him, can sense Bernie Kosar’s approval at his back, and Six’s wild grin. He doesn’t need eyes for everything.

That he should have ended up here, no idea what’s going on with his latest legacy or where it will take him, no closer to finding the other Lorien and muddling through in this world without Henri’s supporting shoulders -- yet happy in this moment, surrounded by people who care about him. People whom he cherishes. He knows they’ll survive, he knows they’ll win. The good guys always do.

“But,” John continues to whisper into Sam’s ear, “I think _you_ should hold on to them. You never know when you might need to protect your eyes from... blinding lights.


End file.
